Realignment of the Party System in Venezuela?

Transcription

1 Realignment of the Party System in Venezuela? Dr Julia Buxton Department of Social Science Kingston University Surrey UK KT1 2EE Prepared for delivery at the 2000 meeting of the Latin American Studies Association, Hyatt Regency Miami, March 16-18,

2 1. Introduction In line with all poll predictions, former Lt. Col. Hugo Chávez won the December 1998 presidential election in Venezuela with a sweeping majority. His victory marked the end of the traditional two party system dominated by the Social Democrat Acción Democrática (AD) and the Christian Democract Comité de Organización Política Electoral Independiente (COPEI) parties. Seven of the eight presidents elected in Venezuela between 1958 and 1993 had come from the ranks of these two parties (five from AD, two from COPEI). Even though Chávez s predecessor, Rafael Caldera, had won the presidency in 1993 as leader of the Convergencia party, he had founded the COPEI party and represented continuity with the dominant party system in terms of policy, practice and personnel. The victory of Chávez in 1998 was predicated on the votes of the poorest (and numerically dominant) sectors of Venezuelan society. He offered them the promise of economic reform and redistribution, a message warmly received in a period of severe fiscal crisis. His oil policy emphasized the need to diversify the economic base from dependence on oil revenues. Chávez was also firmly opposed to the privatisation of the state oil compnay PDVSA. Like the economic proposals, this position was smartly attuned to popular hostility towards privatisation and frustration at the boom-bust cycles of economic growth resulting from Venezuela s status as a mono-exporter. In political terms, the Chávez manifesto embraced radical reform. His proposal for a new constitution was seen as a means to end the institutionalised control of the discredited AD and COPEI parties over all the branches of the Venezuelan state. Chávez sucessfully wedded populism, nationalism and firm leadership. He represented a clean break from the past, symbolically demonstrated by his much vaunted leadership of the failed coup attempt of February Chávez moved quickly to implement his reform proposals. In April 1999 a popular referendum approved the convocation of a constituent assembly. This was duly elected in July. In December, the new constitution was approved in a second referendum. The twentysixth constitution introduced profound economic, political and institutional changes to the fabric of the Venezuelan state. To bring the reform process full circle, fresh elections have been called for May It would appear that the Chávez revolution is relentless. The president enjoys popularity ratings of over 70 per cent. This is despite one of the worst recessions in the contemporary history of Venezuela. In 1999, the economy contracted by 7.2 per cent and unemployment reached a record high of over 18 per cent. It is broadly accepted even by Chávez himself - that the administration was guilty of neglecting the economy as it focused on constitutional reform throughout Yet despite this acknowledged disregard and the intense social hardship this caused, Chávez remains phenomenally popular. Electoral statistics would reinforce the impression that this is an unstoppable popular revolution. Chávez won the December 1998 election with the largest majority in Venezuela s democratic history 56.2 per cent. The April referendum was approved by 92.4 per cent. In the elections to the Constituent Assembly, the ruling Polo Patriótico coalition, which groups Chávez s own political party Movimiento Quinta República (MVR) the Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) and Patria Para Todos (PPT), won 124 of the 131 seats. As a final indication of the mass support for these changes, the constitution was approved by 71.2 per cent in December. Chávez is obviously considered a shoo-in for the May presidential election. 2

3 2. Hypothesis This paper argues that the Chávez revolution is built on dangerously weak ground. Rather than presaging a period of political stability, the future looks ominously bleak. Whilst there are a host of factors which have led the author to this conclusion, space requires that the justification for this position can be built on discussion of only two. Attention is drawn to the reality belying the electoral data. Abstention remained criticially high in all elections and referenda held between This means that the election of Chávez did not reverse the chronic delegitimization of politics and political institutions that prefigured his emergence. Over half of the electorate abstained in the December 1998 election, the most intense and critical in Venezuela s democratic history. Support for Chávez is neither as extensive nor all embracing as his actions in government would seem to imply. Secondly, abstention actually increased in the two crucial referenda on constitutional reform. Abstention in the April referendum convoking the constituent assembly totaled 62 per cent. In the July elections to select members for the assembly, 54 per cent of registered voters failed to participate and in the December 1999 referendum for the approval of the new constitution, abstention rose to 56 per cent. This means that profound institutional change has been affected without the expressed support of over half of the Venezuelan electorate, notwithstanding those who have failed to register. The ability of the Chávez government to push through such a far-reaching series of reforms is relative to the apparent (but questionable) strength of his electoral mandate, but more crucially to the absolute weakness of the opposition parties in Venezuela. Constitutional change has been achieved without meaningful debate and in the absence of consensus. This augurs ill for the democratic health of the country. Beyond the abstention issue, but on an inter-related theme, a second grave weakness in the Chávez revolution is the absence of a coherent party base. Popular support for MVR is limited. This is a revolution dependent on the charisma and authority of one individual Chávez. Without a consolidated party base, it is difficult to gauge how the Chávez government can consolidate these changes in the long term. This has been an elite led project, pioneered by the president and a select group around him. Any ability to meet the stated aims of deepening democracy will be circumscribed by the primary objectives of the government retaining power, preventing roll back and permanently eradicating AD and COPEI from the political scene. This can only presage a period of democratic weakening rather than democratic deepening. 3. The AD-COPEI tradition In his analysis of party systems in First World democracies, Ware points to an incremental process of political reform and change. Dramatic fissures in these party systems is discounted on the basis that parties can respond to demands for modernization and adapt their platforms to changing popular sentiment. Competition therefore drives parties to maintain their relevance. Any failure to do so would lead to their exclusion from the political market. 1 That Venezuela experienced such a sharp rupture in its party system in 1998 underlines the flawed classification of Venezuela as a liberal democracy. 2 Although the political system outwardly met the procedural requirements of a democratic system, the reality was different. The forty year long electoral dominance of AD and COPEI was not based on their ability to effectively compete in the political market. On the contrary, their hegemony was maintained by their negation of meaningful competition and through the imposition of obstacles to political reform. 3

4 During the earliest stages of the post 1958 democratic regime, COPEI, although more specifically AD were genuinely popular. Initially this was because both parties enjoyed a glorified association with the struggle for democracy. They succesfully constructed mass, nationally based political organisations and converged on and captured the centre ground of politics. In the absence of mobilised ethnic, religious or class cleavages, their multiclass, policlasista appeal was extensive. From this base, they were able to sustain the consensual predisposition of the 1958 Pact of Punto Fijo. 3 However, the democratic intentions of the Pact were subverted. The administrative spoils system designed to ensure all parties maintained a vested interest in the democratic regime became a locus for corruption and clientelism. The Pact also sought to marginalise political actors or organisations considered a threat to democratic consolidation. But any autonomously organised interests were viewed as implicitly destabilising. This led to the creation of a system in which interests could only be articulated through AD, COPEI or their affiliated organisations. Ultimately, the exclusion of any group not linked to the two parties became an end in itself. The ability of AD and COPEI to delimit political challenges and their determination to do so, was linked to the oil economy. Petrodollars financed the creation of a paternalist state that was wealthy enough to meet the employment, consumption and investment needs of all Venezuelan society. This in turn facilitated the maintenance of the political consensus embedded in the Pact of Punto Fijo. As the brokers between the state and society, AD and COPEI were able to provide jobs, high wages, credit and subsidies to all class. Any competition threatened to arrest their priveleged access to the oil revenue and their subjective distributionary capabilities. Competition in this respect should be defined in the broadest possible sense. It relates not only to groups external to AD and COPEI but also factions within the parties. Throughout the 1960s, schisms relating to the ideological direction and presidential candidacies of the two parties were swiftly dealt with by the expulsion of dissident voices. Purchasing support was not the only method through which AD and COPEI sustained their political hegemony. The electoral system further facilitated their political dominance. Positions open to elective competition were heavily circumscribed. Despite Venezuela s status as a federation in the 1961 constitution, the president usurped the right to appoint state govenors and the authority of regional governments was restricted. A closed block list system was adopted for legislative elections. Through one single tick, the Venezuela electorate simultaneously elected a single party to all legislative tiers, ranging from the National Congress to parochial councils. This limited the ability of minor or regional based challenges to compete effectively (the wasted vote scenario) or consolidate power at the local level. Unusually within presidential systems, the legislative and executive elections were run concurrently. The president was elected under a single round, first past the post system. This had the two-fold effect of reducing minor party challengers in the presidential competition (the wated vote scenario again) whilst concentrating electoral support alternatively in AD or COPEI. This was evident in the much observed pendulum pattern of voting in Venezuelan elections. As if to completely eliminate any hope for nascent political parties, under the Law of Suffrage state funding of political parties was distributed on the basis of previous electoral performance providing AD and COPEI with a rolling electoral advantage. The end result of these electoral, economic and institutional variables was the artificial construction of a dominant two party system. In the national elections of 1973, Venezuela shifted from a fragmented multiparty system to a two party system dominated by AD and COPEI. This was maintained through successive elections. From 1973 to 1988, the share of 4

5 the presidential and congressional vote between the two leading parties remained above 70 per cent. As if to underline the legitimacy of the new democratic system, electoral participation was high. In all elections held from 1958 until 1978, the abstention level was confined to single digits. Correlating with high levels of participation was evidence of a rapid process of partisan alignment. In 1973, 48.7 per cent of poll respondents claimed to be militants or sympathizers of a political party The anti-party legacy abstention and alienation Expressed electoral support for AD and COPEI and high levels of party militancy led to invalid conclusions about the nature of Venezuelan democracy, specifically that it was stable, legitimate and consolidated. Opinion poll surveys however demonstrated popular disaffection with AD and COPEI. The two parties were widely seen as unrepresentative, selfserving and corrupt. In an influential survey by Baloyra and Martz in the early 1970s, 70 per cent of respondents believed the only concern of politicians was to win elections and 81 per cent viewed the parties as instruments of powerful minorities. 5 These finding correlated with those of Welsch who found that 87 per cent of those interviewed in his 1973 survey believed politicians were dishonest and only 13 per cent believed the parties were democratic. 6 Political disaffection was masked by the persistently good performance of the economy. During the 1960s, GDP growth averaged 6%. In the early 1970s, the Yom Kippur war led to a precipitous rise in oil prices, fuelling a sharp increase in per capita income from $1,340 in 1972 to $2,900 in The influx of petrodollars financed a raft of welfare measures, job creation and credit access schemes. Hence the popular judgement that the government acted with relative efficacy in economic policy ameliorated overt discontent with their political practices. The Welsch survey established that 73 per cent had confidence in the political system to resolve national problems in 1973, decreasing slightly to 64 per cent in Baloyra and Martz found that the favorable economic situation distorted people s perceptions of their class location. 57 per cent of respondents identified themselves as middle class despite an incongruity with their socio-economic status. 9 The efficacy evaluation deteriorated as the economic performance reversed towards the end of the 1970s and as it became pronounced in the 1980s. The chronic mishandling of the oil revenue in conjunction with inadequate macroeconomic policy measures led to a serious contraction of the economy. Rather than reigning in the interventionist state, successive governments borrowed in order to maintain capital outlays. 10 No efforts were made to reduce fiscal dependence on the oil economy. This reflected the extreme reliance of Venezuelan democracy and the party system on the distribution of material reward, pointing to the absence of a normative commitment to the system amongst the Venezuelan population. Economic crisis led to a precipitous decline in popular support for AD and COPEI. This was reflected in a sustained process of partisan dealignment. Those classifying themselves as independent rose from 18 per cent in 1973 to 47 per cent in In August 1995, El Nacional reported that 61 per cent of the population claimed to have no party sympathies, identification with AD and COPEI falling to 9 per cent and 8 per cent respectively. Running parallel with decreasing militancy was a gradual decline in electoral participation. The elections of 1978 saw abstention move into double figures for the first time, rising from 3.4 per cent recorded in 1973 to 12.4 per cent. Abstention followed a persistently upward trend thereafter; rising to 18.1 per cent in the presidential elections of This latter figure was 5

6 surpassed in 1993 when abstention reached a record high of 39.8 per cent. The rise in abstention reflected alienation from the political system not contentment with the prevailing party system, the preponderant explanation for abstention in First World democracies. Given the financial and structural constraints on alternative political organizations, the electorate had no alternatives to exit to hence they abstained. This assessment is derived from the statistical evidence of the dealignment process reinforced by opinions expressed in poll surveys. A survey carried out by the Instituto Venezolano de Opinión y Mercado in 1991 found that 91 per cent of respondents believed the parties had little or no credibility. 13 R. Delgado found that 70 per cent of respondents in his 1992 survey believed parties did not anticipate their concerns and only 25 per cent viewed parties as beneficial. Politicians remained a constant focus of criticism, with 68 per cent of the view that politicians had done little for the country. A further 82 per cent of those surveyed believed that politicians lied. 14 Three years later, a survey by the Fundación Pensamiento y Acción found that 75 per cent of respondents were very dissatisfied with the political system. 15 In response to the questions Which institutions have performed well? and In which institutions do you have the most confidence? the most basic elements of the political system; Government, Supreme Electoral Council, Congress and the Judiciary received the lowest placement. Underlining the link between abstention and alienation, 31 per cent declared they would not vote because the political system did not work and 44 per cent claimed they did not participate in elections because they were not interested. At the time of the Fundación Pensamiento y Acción survey, the national average of economic satisfaction was just 2.7 per cent. Signifying the social linkage between economic well being and perceptions of political legitimacy, 71 per cent supported the view that If the economic situation is improved, automatically, the political situation will improve. A further instructive finding was that 76 per cent of respondents agreed with the statement we will have a richer country when corruption is defeated, thereby linking the possibility of economic growth to political rather than economic reform The Failure of Reform Somewhat ironically, alienation from the political system increased despite efforts to improve accountability and representation. In 1989, the AD government of Carlos Andrés Pérez introduced a number of reforms including administrative and political decentralisation and changes to the electoral system. These were part of a package of proposals put forward by the Presidential Commission on the Reform of the State, known by the acronym COPRE. In the view of COPRE, the elimination of the closed block list in legislative elections and its replacement by named voting would enhance links between representatives and their constituencies. Complementing this vision of a vibrant civil society was the process of decentralisation. Direct election of state governors and mayors was perceived as a means of increasing participation and legitimacy at the regional level. It was assumed that this would feed in with the electoral reforms to improve the credibility of the entire political system. The reforms of 1989 significantly failed to meet their stated intention. Disaffection with the political system as demonstrated by the 1995 survey by the Fundación Pensamiento y Acción - was sustained. Rather than reversing, abstention accelerated. In the presidential election of 1993, abstention increased by 21.7 per cent on the figure recorded in The increase in abstention was over 15 per cent in 21 of the country s 22 states, pointing to a generalized crisis of participation and common, cross-national factors influencing abstention. The increase in abstention was not confined to national level elections. Participation rates 6

7 were also low in the elections for regionally based authorities. In the first set of elections for regional executives in 1989, abstention totaled 54.9 per cent. Notwithstanding a slight decrease in 1992, when it fell to 50.7 per cent, the overall trend was one of a persistent decrease in participation, with abstention rising to 53.8 per cent in Despite the evident failure of the reforms to meet their stated intention, alternative party organisations did benefit from the changes. Decentralisation and named voting to congress provided an opportunity for minor parties to consolidate political control in regions of strength. So for example, La Causa Radial (LCR) and the MAS party were able to win regional executive and legislative office in areas where they had built support at the grass roots level. This was the case in Bolívar state for LCR and in Aragua for MAS. Success in regional elections provided the minor parties with a platform for growth at the national level. Their national level presence was then consolidated by the named voting system as uninimonalidad enabled the electorate to split their tickets. Hence votes for minor parties previously perceived as wasted were now channelled to LCR and MAS. As a result, the national elections of 1993 marked the return to a multiparty system as minor parties capitalised on declining support for AD and COPEI. LCR and MAS also saw their support levels grow in the presidential election (indirectly through the Convergencia coalition in the case of MAS). As with the results of the congressional election, this led to a fragmentation of competition in the contest for the executive and the displacement of AD and COPEI from the presidency. Table 1 National Election Results 1993 Candidate party presidential vote congressional vote R. Caldera Convergencia / MAS 30.5% 24.4% C. Fermín AD 23.6% 28.8% O. Alvarez COPEI 22.7% 27.2% A. Velásquez LCR 21.9% 19.6% Source: Consejo Supremo Electoral, Tomo de Elecciones Overall the intentions of the reforms were subverted. There are a number of factors that account for this development. Firstly, the COPRE proposals were conceived as an organic whole. In their fullest form they embraced not only electoral reform, but also changes to the administration of elections, internal reform of the political parties and changes to campaign financing laws. Pérez only accepted selected parts of the COPRE proposals. AD and COPEI were therefore able to continue with politics in the old way. The two parties altered their electoral strategies as a response to the changes to the electoral system. In local government, well-known congressional politicians were parachuted into regional seats. In the state governor elections of 1995 sitting congressional representatives were selected as candidates for state governor in all but 6 of the 22 states. This was a negative and highly opportunistic development. The candidacies of notables prevented local people from representing their own communities, negating the essence of the COPRE proposals. Decentralization had been viewed as a means of improving participation and representation yet the dynamics of party competition at the regional level ensured that the traditional political class dominated the process. Further narrowing democratic choice was a new intensity of competition. The traditional parties formed alliances in order to limit the challenge of emerging threats such as the LCR. This reduced the number of candidates and electoral options, with small local 7

8 groups forced to unite with the dominant parties. Arguably the greatest failure of Pérez was his failure to embrace reform of the electoral administration. This meant that even though AD and COPEI experienced a real decline in their support levels, they were able to maintain a national presence through recourse to electoral corruption. 5.1 The administration of elections Until 1997, the state body responsible for the administration of elections was the Consejo Supremo Electoral (CSE). The organizational history of the CSE mirrored the trends of clientelism, corruption and bureaucratization in the state and national administration. When the party system acquired its bipolar configuration after 1969, AD and COPEI divided the electoral administration between themselves, building powerful vested interests into the maintenance of the institutional status quo. The responsibilities of the CSE included compilation of the electoral register, the creation of voting circuits, the designation of voting tables and voters, ballot design, legalization and funding of parties and controlling propaganda. Thus politicization of the CSE had critical implications for its ability to administer free and fair elections. The organizational structure of the CSE ran vertically down from the CSE council in Caracas to the state level juntas electoral principales (JEPs), then the municipal juntas electoral municipales (JEMs), down to council wards, the juntas parroquiales (JPs), finally reaching the lowest level, the voting tables or mesas de votacion. Under the Organic Law of Suffrage, the juntas electorales collectively direct, organize and oversee the electoral process under conditions of institutional and functional autonomy. Despite the appearance of decentralization, the CSE was an intensely centralized body with administrative authority held by the Council in Caracas, the only permanently staffed section. Composition of each level of the Council was significant. At the head of the CSE was a president and vice president appointed by Congress, with nine additional members located in Caracas. Under Article 39 of the Organic Law of Suffrage, six of the eleven members were required to be independent. The remaining five were party representatives, distributed on the basis of performance in the previous national election. This guaranteed permanent representation of the dominant parties. The state and municipal juntas electorales also combined independent and party representation. At the very bottom of the administrative hierarchy were the voting tables. The mesas de votacion were the only section of the electoral administration where party representatives outnumbered independents. Each voting table had five members, three appointed by the three parties with the highest vote in the previous national election. Vote stealing during elections was rife at the mesas de votacion. The manual system of voting and the inability of minor parties to send witnesses to cover every voting table facilitated this practice. The politicization of independent figures within the CSE was common. As independents were selected by congress, party loyalists were appointed, allocated on the basis of a spoils system between AD and COPEI. Public confidence in the real level of independence amongst these executive figures was minimal. 18 AD and COPEI thus had extensive control of the entire institutional infrastructure of the CSE. Technical, legal and statistical information that fed to the top of the system emanated from an intensely politicized administrative hierarchy. Gerrymandering of electoral districts was common, as was the tendency for dead voters to be registered on the REP and vote for AD or COPEI. As Miguel Rodríguez, former Minister of Planning and President of the Central Bank claimed: the electoral system is the system of 8

9 AD. AD protects this system making it susceptible to fraud, outright corruption and the stealing of votes. 19 During the period of high systemic legitimacy, the internal operations of the CSE were not subject to critical review. Allegations of electoral fraud escalated following the introduction of electoral reform in Minor parties maintained that election results failed to reflect their true levels of electoral support. Attention focused on the CSE, which was seen to be acting in the interests of the dominant parties. In 1993, for the first time in the democratic history of Venezuela, the results of the presidential elections were disputed. LCR openly contested the results, rejecting their fourth placement and claiming a 2 per cent margin between the official winning candidate, Rafael Caldera and the LCR candidate, Andrés Velásquez. The events of 1993 followed equally controversial local elections in Evidence of electoral fraud was condemned by the Supreme Court leading to the partial rerun of the elections for state governor and mayor in a number of areas. In the state governor elections of December 1995, violence marred voting in the states of Lara, Anzoátegui, Zulia and Bolívar, and appeals against the results in the latter two states forced a partial re-run of elections. In conjunction with events in 1992 and 1995, the disputes of 1993 placed a question mark over the legitimacy of elective authorities. The inability of the CSE to administer elections drastically undermined public confidence in the electoral process. A survey by Latinobarometro in 1993 found that 72.5 per cent of Venezuelans believed that there was fraud in the electoral system. 20 Hence in not pushing through a reform of the electoral administration, any net benefits of the 1989 reforms introduced by Perez were negated. 5.2 The political costs of the 1989 failure The 1989 reforms exacerbated the existing crisis of the political system. They raised hopes of a meaningful restructuring of the party and political system. These expectations were subsequently frustrated by the behaviour of the political parties. This underlined the inability of the dominant parties to reform the system from within, leaving actors external to the party system as the only hope for change. The changes of 1989 had the additional effect of absorbing challengers to AD and COPEI into a discredited party system. This was particularly damaging for LCR. When the party had existed on the outside of the political mainstream it was able to build support through presenting itself as a cogent alternative to AD and COPEI. Through its involvement in the Nuevo Sindicalismo movement and local government politics, LCR was seen to be openly democratic and above the clientelistic and corrupt practices that characterised AD and COPEI. After 1993 LCR rapidly expanded its representation in Congress as a result of the reforms. Their number of deputies rose from the 3 elected in 1988 to 40 in The movement consequently lost its organisational coherence and its profile as a movement distinct from the established parties. In order to compete effectively at the national level, LCR began to adopt the organisational tendencies of AD and COPEI. A powerful central party elite emerged within the party, which looked to horse trading in Congress to expand its control of legislative commissions. LCR additionally jettisoned its commitment to empowering people at the local level and copied the dominant parties strategy of running well-known national politicians for local government office. Having acquired a vested interest in the institutional status quo, LCR dropped its demands for radical political and constitutional reform. Ultimately it was hard to distinguish LCR from the political mainstream. 9

10 The 1989 reforms can be viewed as a conservative process of change in order to keep things the same. The failure of AD and COPEI to implement substantive political reform was all the more condemnable given the overt and ongoing crisis of legitimacy endured by the political system. This was not only evident in declining participation and partisanship but symbolically represented by the Caracazo riots of 1989 and the two military coup attempts of Any expectations of improvement under the Caldera government elected in 1993 were quashed by the fundamental inability of the octogenarian president to grasp the depths of the crisis. Lacking a congressional majority, Caldera relied heavily on support from the AD party in Congress, which in turn acted as an obstacle to progress on the political or economic reform front. Elected on a platform of anti-corruption, democratic and constitutional reform, Caldera disappointed expectations of political modernisation. This was relative to his commitment to the maintenance of the Punto Fijo state and revealed in his economic policy approach. Falling into the traditional trap of inflating public spending during a period of windfall oil revenues, the government vastly increased fiscal outlays in It was subsequently forced into budget cuts of $6 billion when oil prices declined in 1998 and in the run up to the most contentious elections in Venezuela s democratic history. In the absence of reform oriented actors emerging from within the party system, the opportunity for change could only come from outside of the political mainstream. However, the extent to which any extra-systemic actor could claim to represent the heterogeneous group of majority discontented was questionable. 6. Party System Fragmentation Lt. Col. Hugo Chávez, one of the leaders of the Febraury 1992 coup attempt, claims that whilst he was imprisoned he was approached by a number of different political groups seeking his endorsement for the 1993 elections. It is obvious why his support was courted. After the events of February, Chávez was popularly viewed as a real champion of political change. Along with his conspiratorial military group, Movimiento Revolucionario Bolivariano 200 (MBR 200) founded in 1982, he had tried and failed to overturn the illegitimate Punto Fijo state. His custodial sentence transformed him from a military rebel into a martyr for democratic reform. Despite the overtures, Chávez rejected any association with exisitng political organisations. In his view, the two coup attempts of 1992 were a military failure but they were also a political success, indicating to Venezuelans that a leadership commited to revolutionary reform had emerged. 21 MBR 200 interpreted abstention as a method of articulating opposition to AD and COPEI. This had the potential to be positively canalised through a radical mass movement for change. From this evaluation MBR 200 adopted an abstentionist stand for the 1993 and 1995 elections. The strategy had its limitations. Whilst the ultimate end was to encourage all voters to withdraw from elections, no timeframe for the demise of the Punto Fijo state could be determined. As a result, in December 1996 the movement voted to participate in the 1998 elections. A new organisation was created for this electoral end, Movimiento Quinta República. MVR was distinct from MBR 200, uniting both military and civilian activists in an organic group. The timing of MVR s entry into the electoral market was significant. The Venezuelan party system had become increasingly fragmented which worked to the benefit of MVR. The intraparty developments in the run up to the 1998 elections were to have critical implications for the immediate period after the election of Chávez, allowing the new president to move into a vacuum of organised opposition. All significant parties experienced debilitating splits or internal schisms in their efforts to find candidates for the 1998 elections. This reflected the extreme uncertainty over social affiliations and support bases in a period of partisan 10

11 dealignment and rising abstention. LCR formerly divided in April The section of the party linked to Andrés Velásquez retained the name and symbols of the party. In the face of declining political credibility and limited alternatives, the party opted to support the presidential campaign of the independent candidate and long term poll leader Irene Sáez in January Pablo Medina departed from the LCR rump with a majority of the party s congressional representatives. They established a new organisation called Patria Para Todos. In January 1998 PPT somewhat hesitantly decided to unite behind the MVR campaign, sealing an historical relationship between Chávez and leading figures within PPT. MAS and COPEI also experienced crippling divisions that were both ideological and personal in nature. For MAS, participation in coalition with President Caldera s Convergencia party proved highly debilitating. It revealed historical and unresolved ideological distinctions within the party that emerged forcefully in the election of a new general secretary and party president in The successful candidates in the internal elections, Leopoldo Puchi and Felipe Mujica, had taken a critical line in congress towards the Caldera government. Allegations by pro-caldera sections that the internal elections had been rigged belied a deeper crisis over the ideological direction of MAS. The socialist party struggled to find a conceptual redefinition of its aims and objectives in a period of generalised ideological crisis for the left. Further cleavages emanated between MAS leaders in regional politics (who had emerged as a result of the decentralisation process) and the central party leadership. 22 Within COPEI, the cleavages were complex and related to the party s efforts to recuperate after the electoral humiliations of 1993 and There was a generational antagonism between the historical leaders and a younger section frustrated by the lack of internal reform and leadership rejuvenation. This parlayed into a growing ideological distinction between a more market-oriented faction, and a dwindling minority who remained wedded to the model of state intervention. The Christian Democrats were thus divided on how to approach the 1998 elections. One section linked to former presidential candidate Eduardo Fernández maintained that the party should run with a Copeyano candidate, a position opposed by another faction grouped around former president Luís Herrera Campíns. The Herrera Campíns group were prepared to consider electoral alliances with independent actors as a means of restoring political credibility. The Campíns faction prevailed and in May 1998, Irene Sáez was chosen as the party s presidential candidate by 64 per cent of the 1,532 delegates at the party s national convention. The move proved disasterous for Sáez whose support levels rapidly deteriorated. Her association with the discredited COPEI party undermined her image as an innovative and independent figure divorced from the traditional party system. Her decision to run as the COPEI candidate also had implications for LCR which subsequently withdrew its support from her campaign. AD appeared to be the only united and coherent political force. This was related to the unquestioned authority of the party s long time general secretary Luis Alfaro Ucero. His vice like grip on the party machine and bureaucracy enbled him to purge internal opponents. Those who lingered tempered any reformist intentions. Under the guidance of Ucero, AD was able to reverse the electoral disaster of 1993 and emerge as the strongest party in the 1995 regional elections. As a result, it seemed that the party was well positioned for the elections of December However, as with the other parties, the issue of the presidential candidate also caused a rupture within AD. In November 1997, the party s 1993 presidential candidate Claudio Fermín left the party when it became clear that Alfaro Ucero would win the candidacy. 11

12 7. The Election Changes and Implications of November 1998 The Chávez candidacy benefitted from two critical mistakes by AD and COPEI. These were to attenuate their leverage during his presidential term. The first was the decision taken by the AD/COPEI majority in congress in May 1998 to separate the congressional, state governor and state assembly elections (moved to November) from the presidential elections (which went ahead in December as planned). The move was defended on the grounds that the unusual situation of a mega-election for 3,362 executive and legislative posts was too complicated. It was in fact a cynical manouvre, designed to prevent a landlside victory by Chávez. Their concerns over a pro Chávez coattails effect in the state governor and legislative elections was due to his surge in the opinion polls. A poll by Datánalisis in that month showed a decline in support for Sáez to 22 per cent with Chávez leapfrogging into first place with 27 per cent. The decision to alter the election date not only eroded public support for AD and COPEI it further helped consolidate the pro-chávez coalition. A month later the Puchi faction of the MAS joined the MVR campaign, leading to the formation of the Polo Patriótico. This united MVR, PPT, MAS and the Partido Comunista de Venezuela (PCV) into a broad based, civil and military movement. The second major mistake of AD and COPEI emanated from the November 1998 elections. When it became clear that their respective presidential candidates could not prevent a Chávez presidential victory, they were jettisoned, plunging both parties into crisis. Not only did the removal of Sáez and Alfaro Ucero drastically undermine any pretence of internal unity and coherence within AD and COPEI, their subsequent decision to unite behind Henrique Salas Romer, the only real challenger for the presidency, effectively eliminated any hope he had of winning. The November elections were held under distinct conditions. A series of sweeping changes to the Suffrage Law were introduced in December They resulted from pressure from domestic and foreign non-governmental organizations, which lobbied the government to curb the influence of political parties in the electoral process to reduce electoral fraud and improving popular confidence. 23 The manual system of voting was ended and replaced by automated voting. The Consejo Supremo Electoral was renamed the Consejo Nacional Electoral (CNE) and party representation on the CNE directorate was prohibited. This attempt to depoliticize elections was somewhat diluted as Congress reserved the right to appoint the seven members. The neutralization of party influence ran down to the lowest level of the electoral administration. Randomly selected citizens staffed the juntas regionales electorales (JRE) and juntas electorales municipales (JEM). Provisions were made to ensure that at least one lawyer was represented on the JREs and JEMs. Major changes were introduced at the voting tables. The random selection of individuals through a lottery system was introduced. Two of the six table representatives were chosen from a list of local educators, two from a list of students and two from the electoral register. Educational requirements were instituted and those undertaking servicio electoral obligatorio had to attend courses run by the Universidad Experimental Símon Rodríguez. A final significant change was the re-introduction of the list system, with voters distributed into personalized proportional circuits. This replaced the mixed system of list and nominal voting which had been used for the election of congress in 1993 and state legislators in That the presidential victory of an anti-punto Fijista candidate followed reform of the voting system is significant as it underlines the centrality of the administrative variable in the maintenance of dominant party hegemony prior to

13 Whilst the reforms to the administration of elections are to be welcomed, it was unfortunate that the changes were introduced with such a brief amount of time remaining before the elections. The newly appointed members of the directorate had a limited amount of time to adjust to their new positions and there were allegations that they lacked experience. The CNE was criticised for its handling of voter registration. When registration opened in April 1998 only 2,500 of the 8,500 registration centers opened on time. As a result, at the close of registration in July 1998, an estimated two million people had missed the deadline. There was additional criticism from the PP that the CNE had limited the number of registration centers in barrio areas and a broader media criticism that the CNE s campaign of voter information was limited. The changes to the electoral table also created major problems. Each table required six members and a further twelve alternates in case of absence on polling day. Given that the total number of voting tables in the country was 20,000, this required the selection and training of 360,000 people. Administrative delays at the CNE meant that only 233,000 of these table workers received notification from the CNE informing them of their electoral duties. 24 The credentials of the remaining 127,000 were not delivered until the actual day of the election. As a result of this bureaucratic incompetence, the high standard of electoral training anticipated by the December reforms did not come to fruition. 7.1 The Election Results Examining the results of the elections for state governor, the weakness of the MVR party are evident. On paper, the results looked good for the Polo Patriótico coalition, which won control of eight of the twenty-three state governments. However this performance was only possible due to the strong performance of coalition allies, the MAS and PPT parties. Only in Barinas state did MVR win control of the executive without MAS and PPT support. In this case, the candidate was the father of Hugo Chávez, and the MVR benefitted from the natal linkage between Chávez junior and his home state. In Lara and Anzoátegui state, it was the ability of PPT to translate historical support for the LCR into a victory for the PPT candidate. This was also the case in Zulia, where Arias Cárdenas retained the state governorship with the support of an LCR, MVR and COPEI alliance. Similarly in Aragua, Lara and Portuguesa, it was support for MAS candidates standing on the alliance platform that translated into state government gains for the Polo Patriótico. Like the PP, AD also won control of eight state governors, but in contrast to the Chávez alliance, this was without the support of any other major parties. The extent to which Chávez s political organisation could have mounted a coherent challenge to AD without the support of MAS and PPT is evident. Although AD lost control of four governors, the party demonstrated an ability to retain electoral popularity in rural areas of historical strength. 13

14 Table 2 State governor elections Party AD 12 8 MVR n/a 1 PV 1 1 COPEI 3 5 MAS 4 3 PPT n/a 3 LCR 1 1 CVG 1 1 Total Source: Consejo Nacional Electoral, Elecciones 98. Note: number of states rose to 23 with the creation of Vargas in 1997, Proyecto Venezuela (PV) One of the most noticeable trends in the November elections was that governors standing for re-election retained their seats. Seventeen of the twenty incumbent governors won a second successive term. It would seem that preferences expressed in this election were strongly influenced by regional leadership and local issues rather than the national political debate. However, the level of support expressed for the parties in the governorship elections translated almost exactly in the congressional elections. AD received 43 per cent of the congressional vote and 35 per cent of the governorship vote, whilst the PP gained 33.7 per cent of the congressional vote and 35 per cent of the governorship vote. In the context of this analysis, the most significant aspect of the results was the relative weakness of the MVR performance, specifically considering the scale of changes that Chávez went on to introduce. The extent to which these November results influenced the strategy of constitutional reform subsequently pursued by Chávez is evidenced by his decision to close the elected congress after the referendum of April In the absence of a strong performance by MVR, the reformist intentions of Chávez necessarily followed an anti-democratic trajectory. Table 3 Congressional deputies elected Deputies Senate Party AD MVR n/a 44 n/a 12 COPEI PV n/a 20 n/a 4 MAS PPT n/a 7 n/a 2 CVG LCR Others Total Source: VenEconomy Monthly, November 1998, p

15 MVR had moved away from its abstentionist stand in 1996 in order to to contest the elections in The party did so on the basis that it represented a vehicle for voters who were discontented with the electoral system and had consequently abstained from participating. Despite the Polo Patriótico representing a new alternative, they did not significantly reduce the level of abstention in the elections. The assumption that the movement would capitalise on the votes of a reservoir of disaffected voters proved not to be the case. In the governorship elections abstention did fall in all but three states but overall the level of abstention remained high, with over a third of voters abstaining from particpating in both the governorship and congressional elections. Abstention did fall significantly in individual states such as Aragua and Guarico, which were won by the Polo Patriótico alliance. In these two instances the fall in abstention was not as high as that recorded in Carabobo where incumbent Proyecto Venezuela candidate Henrique Salas Feo won the election. Similairly abstention dropped significantly in Miranda, which was retained by the incumbent COPEI governor Enrique Mendoza. MVR therefore failed to reduce abstention and by definition, alienation from the political system. Where abstention did fall, this was linked to the efficacy perception of incumbent governors rather than the emergence of new party political options. Table 4 Abstention in elections for state governor (%) Winning winning State 1995 Party 1998 party Amazonas 36.7 AD 33.2 AD Anzoategui 47.1 AD 45.6 MVR-PPT Apure 43.9 AD 39.7 AD Aragua 62.3 MAS 49.7 MAS-MVR-COPEI Barinas 42.1 AD 39.8 MVR-MAS Bolivar 53.1 AD 47.6 AD Carabobo 59.6 Proyecto Carabobo 39.9 PV Cojedes 34.1 AD 35.5 AD Delta Am AD-COPEI 35.4 COPEI-MERI-AD Falcón 46 COPEI 41.2 COPEI Guárico 52.7 AD 39.9 MVR-PPT-MAS Lara 52.1 CVG-MAS 49.5 MAS-MVR-CVG Merida 44.7 AD 40.8 AD Miranda 62.3 COPEI 47.4 COPEI Monagas 43.4 AD 41.7 AD Nueva Esp COPEI-CVG-MAS 40.7 COPEI-MAS Portuguesa 43.2 MAS-COPEI-CVG 40 COPEI-MAS-CVG Sucre 48.5 MAS-COPEI 46.4 AD Tachira 48.4 AD 39.7 COPEI Trujillo 45.4 AD 44.4 AD Vargas n/a 46.6 MVR-MAS-PPT Yaracuy 39.7 CVG-MAS 42 CVG Zulia 52.3 LCR-Voz 48 COPEI-LCR-MVR Source: Consejo Supremo Electoral, Tomo de Elecciones, Indra, Elecciones de Prelude to December 15